PRECISION MEDICINE: The NEW BLOOD TEST for ANXIETY

Today we’ll be talking about a new blood test that may be able to predict anxiety and determine the severity of anxiety. Stay tuned as I share this new information

👉Key Points in this episode
[00:00]   Welcome to the Genesis Zone Show with Dr Brian G Brown
[00:59]   What is Precision Medicine?
[03:53]   Common symptoms of ANXIETY
[04:52]   Uncommon & overlooked symptoms of ANXIETY
[08:29]   GI PROBLEMS associated with ANXIETY
[11:26]    Most common Mental Health Disorders
[18:07]   Biomarkers and ANXIETY

Connect with Dr Brian Brown, the Moody Brain Expert
🌎https://DrBrianGBrown.com
👍https://www.facebook.com/drbriangbrown
IG:@drbriangbrown
LinkedIn: @company/dr-brian-g-brown

🧬Find more information about genetics, epigenetics and how they impact your overall health and performance🧬 in Dr Brian's FREE Master Class on Gene Hacking https://drbriangbrown.com/genehack/bootcamp

Transcript

 PRECISION MEDICINE: NEW BLOOD TEST FOR ANXIETY

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

anxiety, genetics, anxiety disorders, precision medicine, gene, study, most common symptom, blood test, chest pain, biomarkers, disorders, FDA, muscle tension, fatigue, gastrointestinal problems, nausea, heart disease, stomach cramping, GI problems, mental health, worry, ruminating

Dr Brian G Brown  00:52

The mission is simple to help high achievers naturally eliminate emotional and physical obstacles, so they can optimize their life for higher achievement. 

Welcome, you just enter Genesis zone. Good day. Good day, and welcome to the Genesis zone show this Dr. Brian Brown, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us today. I don't take that for granted. And I truly from the bottom of my heart, I thank you. 

Today we're going to be talking about a new blood test that may be able to predict anxiety and determine the severity of anxiety. Let's jump in. I'll start by answering two questions. What is precision medicine? As stated in the title, okay, what is precision medicine? And why do we need a blood test to tell us whether or not we have anxiety.

Dr Brian G Brown  01:51

Precision Medicine, which is also known as personalized medicine, is a type of medical approach that takes into account individual variability and genes. It also takes into account individual variability and a person's environment, as well as their lifestyle. 

The goal of precision medicine is to tailor medical care and treatments to the specific needs of each patient. Precision medicine takes a more personalized approach by using genetic and other biomarker type of data to identify the most effective treatments for an individual client or patient. By analyzing a person's unique genetic profile, those of us who do precision medicine and do genetics all the time, can really gain insight into potential risk predispositions and the likelihood of responding to specific natural treatments as well as prescription treatments. 

Here's what I'd like for you to keep in mind in this whole understanding of precision medicine, precision medicine is a relatively new field, it's in its infancy, it's only been around about really less than 10 years. And we're learning more and more and more as we go. 

Precision based practitioners use, just like traditional medicine, use studies to back what we do, we just tend to be on the cusp of using that data before anybody else. Because a lot of times when you see a new research study, come out and it discusses a new technique, or a new strategy or a new piece of knowledge, that wasn't previously known.

It takes anywhere from 10 to 20 years for that to trickle down to mainstream medical practice. Now, sadly, when you practice traditional medicine, you oftentimes aren't even aware that these things even exist. But those of us who do precision medicine, we stay in that literature all the time, we go to specialized conferences all the time. And we're in the know on the inside track, so to speak, of what's going on and we're early adopters and early implementers of these types of therapies. 

Prominence of Anxiety in Society

Now as we approach the second question of why we need and an anxiety blood tests, let's first talk about the prominence of anxiety in society in general and what anxiety looks like. Anxiety can manifest in various ways and different people may experience different symptoms. However, some of the more common symptoms are as follows and I'm going to list 10 of these. 

Common Symptoms of Anxiety

1-Number one, excessive worry and fear. You see people with anxiety often experienced persistent and excessive worry and fear of everyday events and situations that to a person that didn't have anxiety just simply would be like the old phrase “water off a duck's back,” it would just roll right off of them. 

But when a person has excessive worry and fear, they hold on to all those little bitty things throughout their day, and it becomes quite burdensome. 

2-The number two thing, or common symptom related to anxiety is difficulty controlling that worry, you see anxiety clients or people who struggle with anxiety, can, anxiety can make it difficult to control or stop worrying, it's almost a little bit like an obsessive-compulsive type of issue. Now, not saying it's an obsessive compulsive disorder, it's just an obsessive compulsive kind of holding on to the worry type of issue, even when the person is consciously aware that this worry is irrational and unproductive. Okay? 

3-Number three most common symptom is restlessness and irritability. Hugely common, whether it be a person that they bounce their legs, their butts, their knees all the time, you may work with a person in the office, that's that way. And you have to constantly tell him to stop bouncing your legs, you're driving me crazy, that continue to be an anxious person. 

There are other reasons why that could be happening. But that could be a person that's struggling with a little bit of anxiety. Or if the person can't sit still, and they have to get up and pace as they could have a little add or they could be anxious, or it could be a little bit both, just kind of depends. But anxiety and restlessness are very common, especially when it's accompanied by kind of feeling on edge. Most of your day, 

4-The number four common symptom is muscle tension. This is a biggie, because it's one that's overlooked all the time. It's one that in primary care settings gets treated and anxiety never gets diagnosed, they just treat the muscle tension, because they rationalize it out via certain other mechanisms and certain other life, other life circumstances, I was lifting something heavy, my back tightened up. And it's been that way for weeks now. And they get treated for something physical. And yes, muscle tension is physical, but they get treated for physical condition versus the anxiety that is root cause. 

So, when a person is complaining of muscle tension or aches and pains all the time, that's something to pay attention to. But when the person gets those knots or trigger points in their shoulders, and in their shoulder between their shoulder blades, and things like that, that's a telltale sign, usually that a person is holding a lot of tension in their muscles. 

If you've ever been at work, and you've been working at the computer, and you find that your shoulders are up around your ears, and you have to make yourself relax, that means you're holding tension doesn't necessarily mean you're anxious. But a person who struggles with anxiety will hold that kind of tension all the time, like their muscles are in fight or flight mode, and they're ready to go at a seconds notice. So, they're very, very tense. 

5-The number five most common symptom is fatigue. People with anxiety may experience fatigue or exhaustion due to the constant and stress and worry that they're under. So fatigue is very, very common and people who are functional and have anxiety, they will make it through their day. But when they get home, they just crash because they have no reserves left. 

6-Number six most common symptom, and this is also a big one, is sleep disturbances. People that struggle with anxiety often experiences because anxiety can make it difficult to fall asleep or stay asleep. Which leads to these sleep disturbances. 

The most common complaint I hear when I'm talking to clients is that they have ruminating thoughts, meaning, I call it hamster wheel thinking, meaning those thoughts that you cannot get out of your head. You can't stop the hamster wheel that's going in circles in your head enough to be able to calm down to go to sleep. Or if you wake up and the hamster wheel get started back. You can't get the hamster wheel stop to go back to sleep. And sometimes people have both, but sleep disturbances are huge. 

7-The number seven most common symptom is gastrointestinal problems. Anxiety can cause a host of GI symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps, and yes, even diarrhea. 

8-Number eight most common symptom is rapid heartbeat. Anxiety can cause rapid heart rate palpitations, it can even cause chest pain, which is quite it's more common than you want it to be, and it creates a lot of difficulty because with chest pain, you've got to kind of tease out how physical is this? Is this person healthy? Are they in shape? Do they have a family history of cardiovascular disease? There's so much to tease out or when somebody says, oh, I'm having chest pain? Well, is it anxiety? Is it a cardiovascular disorder or a combination of both, we just don't know until we rule those things out on both sides. 

So oftentimes, if I've got a person that's coming in with that complaint, and they've not been for a physical, they've not had an EKG or anything done, they've not mentioned this chest pain to anybody else, I'm going to send them for that workup so that we're totally cleared on that. Just want to make sure that it's not anything physical, because sometimes it can be. 

9-The number nine most common symptom is shortness of breath. Anxiety can cause feelings of tightness or constriction, feeling like you've kind of not that anybody's walked around with a boa constrictor around their chest, but it kind of feels like a boa constrictor around your chest, where you just can't take a full deep breath in. 

If you remember when you were kids. And maybe you were wrestling on the floor with a friend or parent or something like that, and somebody laid too heavy, heavy on your chest, and you couldn't, you had to take those signing breaths because you couldn't get a full deep breath in. People that struggle with anxiety will complain that they can't get a full deep breath in. And I call it sighing breathing, because they're constantly walking around, just kind of sighing breathing instead of taking a full relaxed, a deep breath. 

And then the last thing is panic attacks. In some cases, anxiety can be so bad that it leads to panic attacks, which are this sudden onset of intense episodes of fear discomfort that may include physical symptoms, such as the rapid heartbeat, the sweating, and trembling, and so on so forth. It's worth noting that anxiety symptoms can and almost 100% do vary from person to person to person. Because we're all individuals, we all have individual makeups. So keep that in mind, this was a very short list, there are many more symptoms as anxiety. 

These are the 10 most common. Additionally, some of the symptoms may be caused by other medical or psychological conditions. So, it's important to consult with a healthcare professional for an accurate diagnosis and treatment as described with the chest pain example. 

According to the anxiety and depression Association of America, anxiety disorders, are the most common mental health disorders in the United States. So now let's talk about the prominence and impact of anxiety. The numbers I'm going to share with you are similar

Dr Brian G Brown  12:39

or specific to the United States that I'm going to discuss, but they're very similar among all developed nations in the Western world. So first of anxiety disorders affect about 18.1% or 40 million US citizens every single year. And Anxiety disorders are highly treatable with only about 36.9%, about a third of the population actually received treatment, women are twice as likely than men to have anxiety disorders. 

In my experience, they're about 10 times more likely to seek treatment than men, because let's face it, men are too prideful. They don't want to admit they have anxiety, they view it as a weakness, and they just don't seek out that help, until it gets bad enough to cause a panic attack and public i.e., the workplace. And that gets their attention, and they're gonna go do something about that. 

But it's just sad that it has to get to that point because anxiety typically just doesn't start his panic. It typically starts as an anxiety disorder that leads into a panic disorder. But anyway, another story for another day. 

The average age of onset for anxiety disorders in the United States is 31. And they often co-occur with other disorders like depression, and one of the most common substances, substance abuse disorders and eating disorders. 

And lastly, anxiety disorders cost the United States more than $42 billion a year. And that's about 1/3 of the $148 billion total mental health bill that the United States has placed on it each and every year. So, as you can see, anxiety is not only a common occurrence, it's in societies extremely costly, not only to individuals but to society as a whole. 

So, this begs the question, are anxiety issues brought on by life circumstances or are they brought on by genetics? One study published in the Journal of Nature Neuroscience in 2014, and I love this study, I've read this study a million times found that in male mice, so yes, this is an animal study, but in male mice who experienced chronic stress before they mated with female mice had offspring with increased levels of anxiety, like behavior compared to the offspring of non-stressed males, the study also found that this effect was linked to epigenetic changes, which were those modifications in the genetics or the DNA that are passed down through generation to generation to generation. 

Another interesting thing I love about this is that when they looked at the offspring that inherited that anxiety gene, if those offspring and their offspring, for the next seven generations had no anxiety, before they propagated and had children of their own, they still passed on that anxiety gene. So even when with one insult and the historical family line from one person that experiences anxiety, in mice, it can go forward seven generations. 

Now you may be asking the question, what does that mean for humans? The answer is we don't know. Now I can tell you clinically, I see it goes back at least seven generations, if a person is aware enough of their family, to know those things, most people are not, most people can only go back about two generations if they're lucky. But we do know that these things are inheritable, they're passed down, even if you have a perfect life, which is hard to say anybody would have a perfect life. And you have a totally stress-free life, which in this day and age would be near impossible. But if you're one of those fortunate few that has that, and you still have anxiety, and you're wondering why it's probably because you've inherited the genes from somewhere. So that's critically important to understand. 

Here's another study that was published in the Journal of Affective Disorders in 2018. And this was actually done with humans, okay. And it found that there was a significant association between paternal anxiety or father, anxiety from the father side of the family, and the risk of anxiety disorders and their offspring. 

So the study analyzed data from over 13,000 parent-child pairs, and found that children have fathers with anxiety disorders, where it's super high risk for developing anxiety disorders themselves. While the study suggests that paternal or father based things, either your father inherited anxiety can be inherited through genetics and epigenetics, 

It's important to note that the exact mechanisms of transmission are still not fully understood. It's also worth noting that the studies involved involving animal models and observational models and are just not as strong as standard double blind placebo controlled studies. And there's further research that really needs to be done in order to understand the mechanisms of this transmission in order to understand how significant the impact is. 

So now the topic at hand, what is this blood test for anxiety? Researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine just published their findings supporting that they've identified blood test or biomarkers for anxiety. Now, keep in mind, this same research team has developed and are currently still developing blood to blood biomarker test panels for pain, for depression, for bipolar disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. 

Now these previous developments are still in the FDA pipeline for approval as a standalone test, but those of us who do functional medicine and precision-based medicine, we've had access to this study data for a long time. And we check these genetics when we do our workups. But nonetheless, the lead researcher on the team was Dr. Alexander Mozeika. And he published that the most reliable biomarkers for anxiety were in fact, genetic biomarkers. And it's very specific locations on the human genetic strand, that are modifiable by live stress and inheritance from parents, grandparents, etc. 

Now, the biomarkers with the best overall evidence to support that, yes, these have the greatest impact on determining severity of anxiety, and heritability and presence of anxiety are the GAD1 gene, the SLC68 gene, the NTRK3, ADRA to and GRK for Gene snips. 

Now, that sounds like Greek to you, I'm sure. It sounds like Greek to many of us when we first start working with these, but these are common gene snips that we've been aware of for quite some times, we just not had really true powerful clinical studies to back us up. And we're gaining that now. But as with other biomarker tests, they're currently submitting paperwork to the FDA to have this anxiety blood test approved. 

Now, could you get it? Since it's all genetics? Could you get this through a cheek swab or a saliva sample? The answer is yes. You don't have to do blood. I'm sure that's what they're working out with the FDA is how they actually obtained the specimen, but and then proven to the FDA that it actually does what it says it's going to do. 

Now, this brings us full circle to the question of why do we need a blood test? I mean, if you're not thinking about it, you probably should be asking something along the lines of well, isn't it obvious Dr. Brian, when a person has anxiety, so why would we need a blood test to confirm it? And that's a great question. You're right. After the horse has left the stall, we don't need somebody to tell us the horses left the stall. It's just obvious this is a horse outside the barn. Okay. And the same thing with anxiety disorder, once it's happened, we now know, okay, this is anxiety, and it's mild, moderate or severe. But the answer to this question really boils down to prevention, you see if we can identify people who are genetically predisposed to anxiety, maybe because of their family line, maybe because of some mild experiences they've had, but they're currently not having any problems, then we may be able to determine their levels of severity, and their likelihood of or their predisposition for developing anxiety.

And here's what's cool, having practiced psychiatry for about 25 years now, and the past 13 of which  has been with precision based medicine, I've been checking these many of these genes already. And as such, I already see clinical patterns emerging among my clients. But what it's done for my clients is that it gives them the relief that they've not been able to get from any other source.

Dr Brian G Brown  22:16

And you know why? Because we are precisely tailoring their natural treatment to their unique individual genetic and other biochemical needs. You don't have to wait for years for the FDA to approve this test to come out to have this level of testing done, you can have that done right now. 

I'm thankful that Dr. Alexander Nicola Eska, and his team at Indiana University Medical School have paved the path for this. I really am. Because it gives validity to what we've been doing for years. And keep in mind as precision-based medicine people. We're not Renegades out there saying, Oh, I think this would be a good idea. I think this would be a great idea. No, we're taking really good, strong, powerful studies. And we're saying, Okay, this is really good data. But it's going to take about 20 years to trickle down to mainstream medicine. Why can't we go ahead and use this information now? And that's exactly what we're doing. 

Do insurance companies pay for it? Absolutely not. They don't pay for it. Because we don't have, we don't have the backing of the Dr. Alexander Mozeika. because of the world and their research. And sadly, his study his one study, it's not going to be enough, they're gonna have to see multiple studies over time. And then even more sad is that if it doesn't lead to some big pharma solution to the problem, then it's not going to get noticed. It's just going to get buried in the mountain of research studies that are published every single day.

But people like us who are in precision-based medicine, we know about Dr. Alexander Mozeika., and it gives us the strength and the boldness that we need in order to continue the work that we've already been doing. 

In the meantime, if you're curious about whether or not you're predisposed for anxiety, whether or not the anxiety symptoms, were they, albeit mild for you, are problematic. And you're just wondering, Hey, I need to get ahead of this. So that doesn't get out of control. You can get genetics tested right now. 

If you're interested in that. Have any questions about that? Reach out to me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, at Dr. Brian G. Brown, I'll be glad to answer any questions that you might have.

If you're the self-study type, you can definitely check out my website at the bottom of the screen here https://drbriangbrown.com/genehack/bootcamp

and I put together a free boot camp. It's really more of a master class. It's self-paced. You can go through it and you can start understanding how genetics can literally change your life. I think it's a really good little course and it will answer a lot of the questions that you have. 

That's all I've got for today. So glad that you join me for granted, and until next time, stay in the zone. I'm Dr. Brian Brown.